Minor Updates

Too many to list. This update includes A LOT of small changes and I honestly can’t list all of them.

Spawning AI Overhaul

The spawning AI has changed significantly although I have attempted to keep the overall difficulty the same. The AI now combines different Tactics (a bit like Patterns) with different Enemies as if it is playing a Card game. It earns Mana as a result of the Player’s actions and by playing “easy” cards and then spends that Mana on “hard” cards.

This AI is also at the core of how the Administrator AI in the GRID works (see below).

The overall result is that Enemy types are no longer limited by the players level and the Ambushes are no longer limited by time. This should result in a faster ramp-up for good players with more ambushes occurring more frequently and in combinations previously not seen.

GRID Overhaul

The GRID mode as it existed previously is no more. Alpha 4 is a stepping stone to a complete overhaul of the mode into a complete Roguelike Campaign mode.

You are a Hacker working on behalf of a Benefactor whose goal is to gain Notoriety by infiltrating Networks, stealing Files and crashing Servers.

When you start a new game of the GRID you must choose a Difficulty, Character, benefactor and Rig (Currently only 1 of each is available). You can also change your starting Loadout using Items you have unlocked via Arcade modes.

You can have up to 8 GRID games in progress at a time and can load old games from the Game Manager screen.

On the main GRID Navigation screen you will see your hackers information on the left and The GRID on the right.

The layout of the Servers in the GRID is procedurally generated and there will be gaps where no Server exists. Your Hacker has a location and the Servers you can interact with are indicated by the red outline.

The AI installs ICE onto each Server that changes what kind of enemies you will encounter. Each Server additionally has a Mission to complete. Currently there are only 2 but this is set to expand during Beta.

Clicking on a Server will select it then clicking on it again will open the context menu. The top Icon is “Connect” and it will begin a “Run” on that Server. The bottom Icon is “Bypass” and will change your location to that Server assuming you have already completed it.

Firewalls

During a Run you will encounter Structures that look like large Towers. These are Firewalls and they prevent you from progressing to the next level. Destroying all the Firewalls in a level will open a Portal and sitting in the Portal for 3 seconds will transport you to the next Level.

Mission: Recon

During a Recon mission you will have to reach a specific Level and destroy all the Firewalls you encounter to open the Exit.

Mission: Data Theft

Depending on the Mission you are performing different Structures may appear such as a blue Database on the Data Theft Mission. Destroy this Structure and collect the File it drops to start a download from it. Once the Download is complete the Exit will open and you can Portal out of the Server with your prize.

Dive Mode

Dive Mode is an Arcade variant of the gameplay developed for the GRID. Similar to Rush you start with 60 seconds on the clock and lose 10 seconds each time you die. The only way to gain time is to destroy the Firewalls in each Level and Portal to the next Level.

Chase Mode

Chase Mode has undergone a redesign. Instead of the checkpoints resetting the timer to 5 seconds each Checkpoint now rewards you 2 seconds of additional time. This allows you to build up a reserve of time by moving between checkpoints quickly.

I will be updating the Preview branch with an Alpha 4 RC hopefully tonight (Sunday the 12th of March) so those of you who enjoy finding crash bugs can go to town on it and do all the things I never thought to try.

Alpha 4 changes around game balance quite a bit so there will be a Leaderboard wipe to accompany it’s release.

Since Unstable was originally created for testing the Shipping build of the game (which is now the standard version everybody uses) it has been removed and replaced with a new branch called “Preview” which is going to be used to test upcoming major updates.

Anybody can use the Preview branch and there is no password required. Just be aware that things are far more likely to not work correctly/be balanced/be fun in this version.

To kick everything off the Preview branch has been updated with the first Alpha 4 Preview build.

After many weeks of work the Card Game AI system and Modular game modes tech is in place. From the point of view of the players you won’t see any obvious differences. What you do as a player hasn’t changed AT ALL. The main difference is in how content is authored and how enemies are spawned which I will go over below. More

Alpha 3 has had it’s final patch today bringing the total number of Items up to 36 and thee total number of Item combinations to 46,656 (not counting the ways you can distribute the Upgrade points which I don’t know how to calculate but is immense).

That means I’ve started working on the Alpha 4 update today and wanted you all to know what’s going to be in store.

Now as a quick aside I’d like to mention that there is a backstory of a sort to Waves² it’s just never really been a prominent part of the game. The idea is that the game itself is an operating system used by hackers to navigate Cyberspace. That’s why enemies are called Bugs and Viruses and why every Arena that gets generated expresses it’s seed value as an IP address (that plus they are much shorter and easier to remember than 32bit integers).

The sequel to Waves is almost here! Just a few days from now Waves² will be available as an Early Access title on Steam for $10 (It will be cheaper when it leaves Early Access if you’d rather wait). You can check out the trailer below.

T-Shirts

Firstly there is a new button up there in the menu called “Merch”, click this and it will take you to a store where you will be able to buy Squid In A Box merchandise like T-Shirts and mugs. Aside from buying the games buying some Merch is the best way you can help support me in developing new products. Right now there are 2 T-Shirt Designs available in mens and womens sizes.

Waves 2

Those that have been following the facebook page or my twitter will have noticed that over the last couple of months I’ve been hard at work porting Waves from the old Unreal Development Kit to the new Unreal Engine 4.

This is part of a project to bring you all a lovely shiny sequel to Waves (code named Waves 2: Wave Harder) in order to help fund Notorious (previously Waves: Arena Tactics).

Week one. The Arena is built.

The port is the first step on the road to a sequel, UE4 only uses C++ and I haven’t used C++ in about 5 years and even then only sparingly. With the highly favorable royalty terms(5% vs 25% for UDK) of UE4 I couldn’t justify carrying on development of Notorious on the older engine but Notorious is such a large project I couldn’t afford to spend a year porting the (far more complex) code for that game when I can barely remember how to C++.

Week two. How many enemies can we get working at once?

So far about 80% of the gameplay code is ported over to the new engine but there is still lots left to go with all the non-gameplay code such as GUI, Steam integration, leaderboards etc.

Week three. Killing enemies is a thing.

Everything is getting something of a face lift as I implement it as the engine has subtle differences which makes things possible that I couldn’t do before like GPU accelerated particle effects.

Week four. The HUD is ported over.

There is also a fair bit of code from Notorious in here as I just found better ways of doing things while I was working on that game and it was silly not to take advantage of them. The Enemies now have multiple AI behaviors and can prioritize targets which makes the possibility of multiplayer/co-op a reality now.

Week I’m not sure, lets say seven. More enemies get ported over.

The actual game modes have been made easier to author as well with the horrible Kismet powered system I was using before being replaced with a Hierarchical behavior tree which allows the game to look at the game state and make decisions about what is more appropriate to spawn to keep the game fun. That last bit will likely be where 90% of my balancing time goes I’m sure.

Week probably eight. The self replicating Blooms that make combos work appear for the first time.

This project also lets me go back and fix a lot of the things I didn’t like about Waves like the slow friends leaderboards and the way that after a while you could chain bombs almost forever.

Yesterday! The last of the non-boss enemies is ported over.

This is just the porting stage though. This is so I can get used to using C++ again and have a code base to work off and develop an actual Sequel. Most of the old game modes will return; although Challenge will be replaced with a completely new mode inspired by the Adventure mode in Hyrule Warriors, but they will be tweaked quite a lot and the details will be different. There will be some new enemies as well as the old ones (The Evader is now 200% more annoying) and some new weapon options borrowed from Notorious.

Keep an eye on here and the Facebook page for updates as I will be making Alpha access for early adopters available before the end of the year and should have a short video update available next week.

Lots of very boring work has been going on here in Squid Tower, but I’m closing in on a working Vertical Slice of game and the possibility of an Early Access release on Steam this year is looking good.

Loot

The number one thing I’ve been thinking about is loot. It turns out that Waves: Arena Tactics is all about loot and while that was never my intention at the beginning it’s how it’s ended up.

Loot can be bought from the shop, crafted (eventually) but mostly it is found during Dives. The reason you try to get deeper into a system is because that’s where the good stuff is kept. Deeper you go the better the loot and therefore the deeper you can go. It’s circular. Get deep enough and maybe you can crash the entire system and gain immense Notoriety (essentially experience points).

The idea I struggled with for a long time was that all loot should be fair and balanced; an ideology that was a hold-over from working on MMOGs for so long. This ideology is complete hogwash in a roguelike dungeon crawler like W:AT. Depending entirely on the players own skill level to improve over time is “pure” but results in most people just giving up out of frustration. There is also a physical upper limit on what a player can achieve meaning levels can never get more dangerous than that. Increasing quality of loot is what makes a Roguelike work and I am embracing it entirely.

Loot is digital in nature in W:AT. This is a world of bits and bytes not swords and treasure. When you pick something up it gets added to your download manager and queued up for download. Should your connection be terminated before the download completes then you’ll lose the loot (although leaving through the level exit will always complete all downloads instantly). Considering that the best loot is guarded heavily an unauthorized download attempt might cause a significant system response. Picking something up is only the start of your job collecting loot not the end of it.

I’ll go over all the types of Loot in the game and give some examples.

Equipment

All equipment is stuff that you can equip to your avatar. Fairly self explanatory. The majority of Loot is equipment and comes in 3 versions (V1.0 to V3.0) and each version is just flat out better than the previous one. Most V1.0 equipment can be bought from the shop as your Notoriety increases but the better versions need to be found by Diving deeper. V3.0 equipment tends to only be found in the most secure systems at the deepest levels guarded by the nastiest programs. Eventually crafting will allow you to create alpha and beta versions giving you an incremental increase towards the next full version by combining your spares (therefore v3.0b would be the best equipment you can get).

Your Avatar has several slots you can put Equipment into. There are 3 Program slots (Primary Weapon, Defence, and Super Weapon) and 5 Upgrade slots (3 Accessory slots, a Modification slot and a Booster slot). I did toy with the idea of borrowing Eve Onlines slot system but found it was quite cumbersome on a joypad, there are however similarities between the two.

Programs

Your Programs are the only way you can directly interact with the programs populating a system. They should be fairly self-explanatory but I’ll go over them anyway.

Primary Weapons are your basic attack (gun). Primary weapons use no energy and are always available. They are the bread and butter of the game and take one of 3 forms (I’m working on a fourth but I’m not committing to it yet) – Projectile, Beam and Thrower. Projectile weapons all launch a projectile that takes time to hit its target and often have an explosive element, high rate of fire and a large spread. Beam weapons all fire continuously and have zero travel time hitting instantaneously, they’re great at single target damage. Throwers are very short ranged but require very little aiming and often have a secondary effect like burning, stunning or knock back.

Defences are non-damaging programs that are intended to keep you alive a little longer. Defences always use up energy and may have a cool-down period after using them. Once a Defence is triggered it lasts for a fixed duration of time so knowing when to use them is critical. They can however save your life. Examples of Defences are the “Slow Field” which slows down everything around you, the Energy Shield which makes you temporarily invulnerable, self-heals, cloaking devices, teleporters, EMP blasts and sometimes they just give you massive buffs (for those that believe attack is the best form of defence).

Super Weapons (New better name suggestions welcomed) user up energy in order to kill things very efficiently. Smartbombs are the simplest example being great for removing all the chaff you may find yourself swarmed by. Some Super Weapons just do lots of damage or clear the screen while others are more about area denial such as lightning storms which last for a while striking enemies randomly inside their area of effect.

Upgrades

Upgrades are passive bonuses and can be used to tailor your Avatar to a particular play style.

Accessories manipulate the 8 base Stats in the game and define your Avatar: Health, Attack, Defence, Speed, Energy, Health Regen, Energy Regen, and Hacking. Health and Speed are obvious, Attack multiplies the damage of all your weapons while Defence absorbs some of the incoming damage your suffer. Energy is used to run Defences and Super Weapons and Hacking is used to crack open files and databases you find in the game (some files need a higher hacking stat to access at all). Health and Energy Regen just represent your avatars ability to passively regenerate those two stats.

Accessories come in many forms the most basic of which is just a single stat modifier like +10 Health. More complex forms might offer a larger single stat increase at the expense of another such as the Turtle which offers +15 Defence at the expense of 10 Speed. Others may offer small gains across many stats which is only useful when you have 3 of them stacked up. With 3 versions of every Accessory there are already over 100 Accessories in the game and the potential for even more in the future.

Modifications offer passive buffs that can be quite game changing but always come with a significant downside. A lot of the team buffing auras are modifications such as Healing Auras which increase the Health Regen of everybody within a certain range. Other modifications like the Vampire regenerate your health as you cause damage to enemies or they might just add a secondary effect to your attacks like a stun or burn effect. The downsides might just be sacrificed stats or debuffs (the Vampire Mod has a negative Health Regen so it might kill you).

Boosters only last a single level but provide a massive bonus during that level. The only way to gain extra-lives is by equipping an Emergency Backup Booster giving you a single life that lasts for one dungeon level. Other Boosters may give you a huge bonus to your stats or negate the Downside of a Modification. Boosters being consumable means that there are a lot of them out there and simple versions are readily available from the Shop.

Passkeys

Every level contains a number of Passkeys which are required to be able to unlock the level exit and in some cases well protected files. They aren’t very fancy but they are required to get deeper into the level. Passkeys are only ever contained in Databases which must be hacked (staying within proximity of the server until the security is broken down) which has a tendency to draw the attention of the system defences. Not all Databases contain Passkeys but they always contain something worth your time unlike Files which sometimes contain nothing at all or even worse Viruses.

Money

Yep Money. However we’re not talking gold coins as this is a digital universe. As a hacker sometimes you’ll find data that somebody might want to pay for (or will pay a ransom for). When this happens the offending files are converted into cash as soon as they finish downloading. These files might be a database of user names, payment details, credit card numbers, nude cell phone pictures or CCTV footage of illegal nuclear waste dumping. Whatever form it takes it’s worth money to the right (or wrong) people. Eventually I’ll add Bank systems that only ever contain large quantities of money but that’s for a different time.

Pickups

Pickups are temporary little boosts dropped by programs in the system as they get terminated. You can also find pickups inside files. The most common pickup dropped by all programs is energy. All programs use energy to run so when you terminate a program you can steal the energy before the system reassigns it. Some pickups might boost your stats temporarily as well.

If you regularly follow my blog you will have noticed that I’ve been pretty much absent from the internet for the last 6 weeks or so. I’m very sorry about this, I’m sure you want to know what’s going on with Arena Tactics and the silence on the matter has been disheartening.

This was all caused by my internet connection becoming almost completely unusable during this time. REIN (Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise) in my local area was causing my broadband signal to cut out sometimes a hundred times a day, this meant that the local exchange ended up throttling me down to early 1990’s speeds with massive packet loss as well as the disconnections. BT have been trying to find the source of the noise (I live in the town centre so it could have been any of a large number of shops, businesses or homes causing it) and say that they’ve resolved the issue. Here’s hoping it stays resolved so I can get back to important things like streaming development, uploading videos and generally keeping you all up to date.

New Low Price

After the previous Week long sale I secretly dropped the price of Waves from $10 to $5. I did this secretly because I wanted to see what effect a change in price would have without any of the effects of coverage that might result. Well after 2 months the game has been pulling in over 3 times as many sales at the lower price than it was managing before thus proving something.

In practice this means that Waves is now pulling in enough money each month to support my (tiny) salary where before it was a constant cycle of building up reserves from big sales only to slowly deplete them over 6 months. Hopefully this should let me get ahead of the game and free up some money to pay contractors for Arena Tactics.

Arena Tactics Progress

Waves: Arena Tactics is coming along nicely. I’m working on a vertical slice demo to coincide with the relaunch of the Kickstarter campaign later this year so you can all have a play and see what you’re funding.

The demo will give you the ability to attack a corporate server in Dive mode up to 3 levels deep. There will be boss fights, loot, a new inventory system, local co-op for up to 3 players (since online multiplayer would require Steam) and hopefully some new art work and music. I’m currently at the stage of tuning and balancing the demo (the internet being down gave me a lot of time to get programming done so the demo is pretty much feature complete) to ensure that it’s as fun as possible.

Keep your eyes fixed on Twitter and the Facebook page for any announcements of upcoming live streams as the demo gets closer to completion.

Update 1.4 went live on Sunday adding a seventh Game Mode to Waves. Currently this update is only available to Steam users until I get a patch out. However everybody that buys the game direct from this site still gets a Steam code to redeem if they want to access the online features.

To celebrate the new update and also to try and raise some money to fund Arena Tactics, Waves is 75% off on Steam all week!